Song of Achilles

Fandom was pretty excited about Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles, and I liked Circe a lot, so I finally got around to it. Mixed feelings! Some very pretty writing, but I found it more effective when it was foreshadowing then when we actually got there? I'm not sure exactly why the final chunk didn't work for me - maybe I wanted it to feel more sad-tragic than frustrating-tragic, maybe the core story just isn't actually that good or interesting. (Like, the fame vs long life thing is powerful, the prophecy and trying to stall fate, but the whole dominance showdown, enh. And so much hinges on Patroclus's choice to pursue the Trojans but Miller couldn't really sell me on it as a character beat, it's just the thing that has to happen for the rest of the plot.) Maybe what it really needed was a twist, some unexpected shift in the predetermined story we're expecting. (Thinking of Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, which makes that one tiny but mindblowing change at the end.) Also that was a lot of feet imagery for a narrative that (spoiler) wasn't going to engage the heel story.

Tomb Raider

I like Alicia Vikander, and this was so close to the lady Indiana Jones movie of my dreams, but I would have liked it if she got to play it more funny and less serious. Like, that was clearly not the vibe they were going for, in the end, but the first half was pretty good on that front (the bike chase, the waterfront chase, the plane ruin). The tonal shift in the second half lost me, though - the tomb was goofy enough to not play well as Scary, and whole thing with her dad was weight the movie didn't need to have to try to carry.